


The Harvest Tourney

by Renega



Series: Stay Gold [3]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Jousting, Smut with a side of horses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-19
Updated: 2020-02-19
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:47:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22804312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Renega/pseuds/Renega
Summary: I'll be honest, this is where I really wanted to go from the beginning. And I refuse to be sorry.The ridiculous adventures of a fifty-year old one-armed knight.
Relationships: Bronn & Money, Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth, Minor or Background Relationship(s), Podrick Payne & Meera Reed, Tyrion Lannister & Sansa Stark
Series: Stay Gold [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1639381
Comments: 34
Kudos: 68





	The Harvest Tourney

**September 1** **5**  
  
By the end of three days quarantined on the quarterdeck of the Just Maid, she is throughly shagged out from her second honeymoon. Wylla and Devan come to visit twice a day, bring them meals and empty their chamberpots, but for once they have nothing else demanding their attention and nowhere else they need to be, and they've made up for lost time. Years of it.

Gilly and Helaena came down to the docks, Helaena tending to young Sam as Gilly managed to wrestle wee Edd onto one shoulder and Gerry onto the other. Dry up, they told her. A week, and then she could come back to the city. You can be Lord Commander and a mother, but not a nursing one. She has had to bat his hand from her breasts, tender and swollen as they are, half a hundred times. She has wept from them into the blankets. She has hungered for her babe and taken it out on her father's hand, the only other person holed up here with her, with a vengeance.

He hasn't looked so half a corpse since Harrenhal, at least not in her viewing. It's possible she broke him; he hasn't moved from her bed of furs for an entire afternoon and can't manage to do more than mumble a handful of words, none of them sensible.

“Your brother is even now boarding his carriage. Please try to make yourself presentable.”

She pretends she doesn't hear him mutter 'fuck Tyrion' into the pelts and continues strapping her sword belt into place. When she leaves the boat, she'll clad herself in the armor of her office, but here behind these walls, she is still just Brienne, and she's meant to be healing anchored off the docks of the city, sequestered from the tiny babe slumbering up the hill with his milk mother and cousin. Her wool dress is pale blue, the color of a damp sky. It's her least favorite color, but if she starts leaking it's the one least likely to show it, so it will do to break bread with the King's hand. They've had all day to prepare, and she wanted to appear competent and ready to come back to work.

But that was before she broke him. She grabs a fresh tunic and trousers out of his trunk and throws them down at him.

“Ser Brynden, at least dress yourself.”

He moans, but he rolls over. There are scratches down his chest and his neck is purple, but he looks sated. “That's not what you were calling me earlier, wench. I'd rather have you dress me, I think.”

She narrows her eyes and hisses his name at him, and it's what he wanted because he smiles like a cat with its face half-buried in a bowl of cream and stretches out. He's half-hard, but he's clearly also half-dead and even she is sore and aching and can't bear the thought of getting dressed a second time. She stuffs his legs into his trousers and jerks them up his body, being exactly as rough as she means to and he pants and moans and doesn't help her a single bit. “Blessed mother, you are a lot of work,” she grunts, righting his wooden arm and jerking his head up to wrestle him into his tunic. He laughs and pokes at her, and she wriggles out of his grasping good arm and leaves him to right his own clothes.

“I'm an old crippled man, Brienne. I need a lot of help.”

She snorts and tugs her dress back into place, tucking her hair behind her ears. He's still splayed out on the furs, his trousers unlaced and his tunic hiked halfway up his chest, but he's on his own. She knows better than to get too close to him right now, senses exactly the way he'd like to greet his brother.

She's smarter than that, at least. “Ser Brynden, I am Lord -”

“Commander of the Kingsguard,” he cuts in, and then snorts dramatically. “Fuck, for a moment I'd almost forgotten. What would your predecessors say, I wonder, if they could see you here on holiday fucking your father's employee for three straight days until he couldn't even bear to leave the bed?”

She knows she's blushing and she turns her back on him, arranges the heavy chairs around the table. She lit a lavender-scented candle half an hour ago, and now the room smells like sex and floral soap instead of just sex. The evidence is harder to hide than it was in Winterfell, with her room's great hearth and the crackling fire and smoke, or Evenfall, where she left her window open most of the time.

She's about to chide him again when the knock comes. To hell with it; if she tries to reason with him he'll just wind her up. She flings open the door. Wylla bustles in with a sturdy tray of food, setting it on the table. “Ser Brynden, young Devan is bringing up the wine and bread. Do something to present yourself as a role model, if you please.”

Wylla succeeds where she failed, because he at least sits up and pulls his tunic down over his unlaced trousers, shrugging. “I'm not much of one, really, if you think about it.”

They both roll their eyes and then help Devan unload his burden and bustle him back out before he has a chance to take in much of his surroundings. Wylla nods and leaves just as Tyrion appears in the doorway, and then he's pulling the doors shut behind him.

“Well, you're a bellyfull of wine short of a life's goal, wouldn't you say? Never fear, your Lord Hand has come to help. Sit, Brienne. I will serve you.”

She does. She hopes she manages to do it with some grace, but she's sore all over too. Tyrion unpacks three goblets and pours her a glass of wine, sliding it across the table.

“You sent me off to die,” pouts her grey lion as he crawls over and pulls himself into the chair beside her, waiting for a cup of his own.

“I sent you off to heal; whatever damage you've done to yourself in the meantime is not my concern. Something has bitten your neck, but it looks to be a surface wound. If you want pity, I am sadly not your man.”

He sets three trenchers full of vegetables and roasted meat on the table, pours out his own glass, and then sits across from them. “To Gerion Lannister.”

She drinks deep at this. Her babe is safe, and well, and just up the hill. Tyrion has seen him for three days while she's been sequestered from him, but she'll drink to his life and health and future with gusto now that she can again. “My nephew,” he clears his throat, and she glares back, “Is perfect.”

Tyrion raises his glass again. “To his father's blessed memory.”

She narrows her eyes at him, but Jaime sets his cup down on the table with a thump. “Really, Tyrion? You expect me to drink to that?”

“I do, Ser Brynden. Expect you to be...sensible about this. You looked well fucked by a happy wife, as Bronn might say, had I asked him to join me. Be grateful I didn't; he'd never stop going on about how you couldn't even be bothered to lace your trousers for dinner. My father -”

Jaime takes a large bite out of his trencher, talks with his mouth full. “Would die of happiness if he knew if his cubs were still pulling all the strings. Leave off. I won't drink to it, but I'll bite my tongue.”

“I thought you might. The truth isn't all its cracked up to be. You got the better end of the stick from where I'm sitting. The blessed martyr of song, hung from the walls of the castle he tried to save, and in reality you get a pretty island to run and no expectations. Whereas I, the obvious turncoat in the whole situation, have to grind away here in this city while the whole realm blames me for every problem it faces. We'll be lucky if this whole Tourney at Harrenhal business doesn't turn out to be as disastrous as the last attempt. No one's heard from His Grace in five months except Podrick and Meera, and they just keep sending us ravens talking about various ways to cook trout. Bronn and Davos do nothing but argue while Tarly drones on about minutia. I miss Varys.”

She can think of nothing to say to his monologue, but she sneaks a glance under her lashes at Jaime, who is blinking tears out of his eyes. But then his mouth draws up in a slow smile, and he snorts. “Tyrion, are you telling us you're running the realm?”

“It's terrible. I missed you too. Both of you. Sansa is having just as much trouble in the North; do you have any idea how much people _want_ things of you when you have the power to give them? The meetings alone wear away at your soul until there is nothing left. Jon and Tormund took off on some adventure to Hardhome with a band of wildlings and he hasn't sent a raven the whole summer. Arya got one to her sister saying she and Gendry were drinking funny drinks with wee umbrellas on sandy beaches in the summer isles before their next leg, and frankly…who needs to hear that? None of us. And then there's the pair of you, but at least we've gotten ourselves an heir out of that business.”

“You could have told me, Tyrion,” she sniffs, and then bites off a small piece of her stew.

“I did. You replied with some woo woo about him always being with you, like some sort of greyscale plague you can't find a cure for, and then promised to name my niece Tyrion. But Gerion will do; I forgive you, sweet sister.”

“Many thanks,” she bites back, but with some humor.

“The name was my doing,” Jaime cuts in between bites of the beef and swigs of the wine. “I am here, you know.”  
  
“Did you hear something, Brienne? It was almost like a ghost...well, never mind. The wind does strange things here at sea. Ser Rolland did a splendid job ensuring your skeleton crew never realized they were being selected for the duty on the basis of deafness. We feared you might make a ruckus locked here on your boat during your weaning. I hear your desperate cries for your departed husband have been heard all the way in the wool district.”

She thinks even Jaime is blushing at that; she certainly is.

“That wasn't grief,” he preens, raising his glass again.

Tyrion takes another bite, chews it quickly, and swallows. “There's the bellyful of wine. I've done my part; the rest is up to your own charm.“

“My charm's worked for me more than once...today,” he drawls, tilting his glass back and draining it.

Tyrion shudders, drains the rest of his glass, and slides out of his chair. “See you around, Ser Brynden. You're welcome.”

Tyrion shuts the doors behind him when he goes. She turns to Jaime, who is eating away at his dinner with a smile on his face. “What did he mean with the wine?”

“Finish your dinner and I'll show you.”

He licks his lips. Seven help her, she's boneless again just considering the possibilities.

**September 23**

Climbing the ladder was a tad too much for his tired old body. He can see that now. A servant's cowl would have been just as effective, and loads more _sensible_. But no. Getting Devan to row him to the strand so he could sneak up the toilets into his own chamber...much more clever.

He's clearly the stupidest Lannister left, he realizes, as he crawls out from her toilet. His tunic and trousers are streaked with...well...that's disgusting. He shrugs out of the tunic, and then the trews, until he is clad only in his smallclothes and rinsing his hands and face off in her basin. Her chambers are bare; she's not in them. Her bed has been stripped of everything but the sheets, and he takes them off and wraps himself in them, lighting a lamp off the burning sconce on the wall, trying to think of how to get a message out to Devan or his brother or…anyone, really. Anything but crawling back down the way he came.

It isn't particularly cold, at least. Someone's banked up the fire, which is a relief but also alarming. Is he going to be caught by some servant, half naked in the Lord Commander's office in the middle of the morning?

She's changed nothing. The same ephemera still lines the walls; the vast chair still sits on the convex side of the table. His things are where he left them; the Book of Brothers still sits in front of her chair. There are stacks of papers scattered across the surface, and one bunch is held down by his amber lion paperweight.

She found his copy of Galladon of Morne. It's not where he left it, but sitting on her sideboard next to a decanter and a tray of goblets. He pours himself out a little mead and sits down in his chair, tucking the sheets around him, staring down his ghosts.

He swallows down any sadness he feels with the mead. He didn't come up here to mope. It's been sixteen hours since she left him on the boat, and he was pretty desperate for a shag. And if he's honest, he wanted to make good on a well-loved fantasy long denied. He only bequeathed her one of the two swords he wished to in the White Sword Tower, and he has a long-overdue wish to give her the other.

Where the fuck is she?

He looks at the book on the desk as if it could grow a pair of horns if he gave it long enough. Part of him wishes to know what she wrote of him, but a larger piece doesn't ever want to know. He resists the temptation to crack it, picking up Galladon instead, burying himself in silly tales of the summer knight and his Just Maid.

He's halfway through – bold Ser Galladon has just drawn his sword for the second time and slain a dragon – when she finally bustles in. She lets out a little squeal before she realizes who's sitting in her chair, and then she begins to laugh. “Sweet mother, you startled me. Where are your clothes?”

He shrugs, looks her up and down. She's glorious and shining with the copper raven twinkling on her breastplate and her hair slicked back and tied tight at the base of her neck. She leans over his shoulder, studies the volume in his hands, and then gives him a light kiss on the cheek. “You shouldn't be here, Ser Brynden. I told you to stay -”

“Arrest me, then. You can tie me up right here and torture me until I'm begging for mercy. How about it, wench?”

“I'm not going to -” she begins, but then huffs. “How did you get in?”

“Through your toilet. Benefit of being the previous occupant. I know all the less savory ways in and out of the tower.”

Her face screws up and it's adorable. “That's disgusting.”  
  
He tugs at her wrist, pulling her toward him. If she'll just come around a bit more, he can probably manage to trip her so she falls into his lap. Or on the table. Either will do. She stays just off to the side as she looks down at him. He raises an eyebrow and bucks his hips and she shakes her head at him with a little frown. “I came up here to get the rotations for the guards staying here in the city. Ser Rolland and Ser Davos are waiting for me.”

“Tell them you lost it,” he says, finally tiring of her games. He heaves himself out of the chair sideways, throwing his weight at her, knocking her back against the table. The sheet slides down to the floor. She gasps and flushes as he nips at her earlobe and brings his wooden arm down to pen her in.

She continues to protest that he's making her late, being reckless, doing dangerous things, going to get them both caught out, imperiling the peace of Westeros. She threatens to send him back to Tarth on the very next tide. She warns him that the door isn't locked around gasps and kisses, but he ignores all of it, grinding himself against her until even the great table rattles, until she pants yield against the skin of his neck, and then he turns her around and gets his good hand under her armor and manages to strip her trousers down to her thighs. She leans her elbows on the table, between the White Book and her father's fairy tales, and he shoves himself in as deep as he can go. She whimpers and rocks back against him and the long slow climb up a sewer shaft is worth it. It's all – all of it, every last bit, every chunk of his hand and arm – worth it.

She breaks apart beneath him, and he lets himself go, and the reality is better than all of his fantasies. Good enough, perhaps, to carry him through these next months of stumbling on without her back on his island full of sheep.

 _Perhaps_.

“I have wanted to do that for a very long time,” he mutters, collapsing onto her and trying to get his breath. “Years. You look very pretty spread out on my table.”

“It's my table,” she grumbles back. “I hope you enjoyed yourself, because I'm not doing this on a regular basis.”

She wriggles out from under him, wipes herself off on the sheet, and laces her breeches back up. Her breastplate has hiked up, and she has to unbuckle it to tug it back into place. She glares at him as she rights herself, running a hand over her hair and rustling through the papers on the desk until she comes up with the ones she needs. “I've moved off Gilly's chambers to be closer to Gerry at night. I'll send Bronn up to smuggle you out, but don't break into my office again.”

“I don't have the energy to climb that shaft again.”

She kisses him again, lightly, smiles against his mouth. “We'll come see you off before we leave for Harrenhal, but try not to be insufferable. Stay where you're put. That's an order.”

He rolls his eyes at her, and he uses his snidest voice. “As you wish, Lord Commander.”

She shakes her head at him but smiles ruefully. “Well, I am.”

“Well, be my knight in shining armor, then, and make sure Bronn brings a snack along. All this sparring has tired me out.”

Her snort echoes down the hallway behind the slammed door, and warms his heart.

**September 27**

She saddles her horse for the journey, tasks Devan with leading it from his own mount while she rides in a carriage with Gilly and Helaena and Wylla and the babes, but Edd is teething and squalls constantly as they rumble along. Gerry is sleeping peacefully. She keeps craning her neck around to try to see the front of the line. When Ser Rolland comes to check on them, Wylla teases Gerry out of her arms and nods to her. “Go. Ride. He'll be fine here. Get her horse, Ser Rolland.”

Devan comes trotting back down a few minutes later, and she feels a pang of regret that she can't just sit still and loll about in a carriage, but it's driving her mad so she leaps down, reattaches the lead to the bit, and swings up onto her horse. It feels better to ride; on Tarth, for the few short days after she'd healed but before she had to leave, she'd tied Gerry up in a sling and taken him out on a short jaunt to the Godswood. But this is the mainland, and she would never get away with that here. Riding post beside the carriage is the next best thing, because she can trot back and forth and check in on him while not being trapped in one place. The air is cleaner up front, beyond the cloud of dust their caravan makes, and she's glad of it. She needs the extra time on horseback, besides, because she's not in her best condition but she means to turn out anyway. Ser Rolland intends to enter the lists, and she suspects Devan would like to, and she wonders if Podrick will; she's fairly certain she can hold her own and not embarrass herself, at least against the likes of them. She's not a great jouster, but she's a solid mass, and she's loads more confident than she was when she last rode to lances.

She goes a fair bit in the carriage after they break for lunch; Gerry sleeps sound after nursing, and Sam gets banished to his wife's carriage, bumping Wylla up to ride with Tyrion and Davos and Marya. Brienne ties her horse to the back of their equipage and spends a half hour monitoring things while Tyrion holds his nephew and describes the passing scenery to his sleeping form. It's sweet and silly and she stays until the rocking and the food has them all half-dozing before she ranges off again to find Devan. He's not the rider Podrick is, but he lacks the miles and years of experience. He's easy enough to keep pace with, quiet enough not to drive her mad with chatter. It's comfortable to ride with him, and she marvels at how much things can change but not lose their essential form.

It was hard watch Jaime sail away, but it didn't gut her. She'll see him again soon enough, and in the meantime he loves her and misses her. She has Gerry and her job, and he has her father and Tarth. It's more than she's had to sustain her through a parting in their entire long and winding history together. More than she misses him, she misses Podrick, looks forward to seeing him again. They managed two ravens during her long confinement, but it's not enough.

“If we hurry, we might make it to the castle before tomorrow afternoon,” she huffs.

Devan ignores her.

There is nothing she hates more than leisurely travel. If peace has its drawbacks, that one is surely first on her list.

**September 28**

As promised on his way out of the Red Keep through the tunnels, Bronn met him at Rosby when they put into port. He was complete with Glory, a cloth sack full of borrowed plate, and the shield and bards and ribbons he requested. He waves the ship on before he discards his azure cloak and navy tunic, trades them for a grey roughspun shirt and a cloak the color of ripe peaches. He pulls the plate from the sack and ducks his head around to make sure they're alone before he tosses a rose-enameled gambeson toward the large ugly head of Lord Bronn of the fucking Dawn. “I asked you for a mystery knight's kit and you brought me Loras Tyrell's armor.”

“It was handy. Get it? Handy...OW! Stop throwing it at me, Seven hells, what did you want on twelve hours notice? Considered yourself sponsored by Highgarden or you can fuck right off and get some other cunt to do your dirty work for you.”

“Fine,” he huffs, because he needs his friend's help to buckle it all, because even with his wooden arm he lacks that sort of dexterity. He can pull the breastplate over his head. It isn't as ill fitting as it might be; Loras was about the same size, though a bit trimmer in the stomach. He looks like a middle aged man in a younger man's armor, which is just about right for a mystery knight. But the large enameled roses will surely invite comment, and they clash terribly with the peaches quartered on his bard. “Beggars can't be choosy, I suppose, but you're clearly trying to make me look as ridiculous as possible and I won't forget it. Buckle me into that gambeson, will you?”  
  
“You could be a little more grateful for how much I'm risking here. I'm not sure his grace is going to think this is such a delightful jape, but it's your head. Don't go dragging me in if it goes tits up, Ser Brynden. I am not your accomplice, just your angel investor.”

“Sure you are,” he answers cheerfully, feeling complete and whole now that he's tucked away behind a protective metal shell. He slides the helmet down over his head. “How do I look?”

“Right stupid. This is the dumbest idea you've ever had.”

His voice echoes around inside the tacky rose on his head, ringing in his ears. “Please, it's not even the dumbest one I've had this week. You had to smuggle me out of the White Tower while I was dressed as a maester.”

But he does have some second thoughts as he gallops away from Bronn, riding as hard as he can due West toward Harrenhal. Second thoughts about where he's supposed to sleep, and how uncomfortable it's going to be to bed down in his roll with a bunch of stinky youths when he can't even remove his helmet to eat or drink or wipe his nose. Instead of taking the Kingsroad when he reaches it, he crosses it and heads toward the lake and the Godswood behind the castle. Perhaps he can find an empty bit of grove to bed down in, at least for a few hours. Bronn has left him well provisioned, and he feels reasonably confident with the Tarth sword in his hand, so he doesn't feel a particular sense of foreboding as he rides into the trees.

It's Glory, his big black warhorse, who senses something change in the air and grinds to a halt, sniffing the air around him and pawing at the forest floor.

He smells them, musty and strange, before he hears them. And he hears them before he sees them, but all at once the trees before him are alive and growling wolves crouch in the shadows.

It was a stupid idea after all. A grey wolf as large as Ghost emerges from the undergrowth, her snout low to the ground and sniffing. She snarls, and Glory rears back and throws him before skittering off.

Eaten by wolves in a forest while dressed as Loras Tyrell is a pretty shit way to die, he thinks, but then that's his second concern because an arm slides around his throat while he sits in the dirt and at the end of the arm is a knife and the point of the knife is digging into his throat. “Nymeria, off.”

It's a woman's voice, a woman who holds him at knife point in the dirt. He can't see her, but he doesn't recognize her voice. She reaches around and pulls his helmet off with her spare hand, tossing it into the dirt at his knees. “You dare to come armed into the Godswood? I don't know how much plainer the Warden of Harrenhal can make it; there are to be no arms in the sacred groves. Explain yourself.”  
  
“You're armed, aren't you? Hypocrite.”

She doesn't remove the knife at his neck, but she twists her body so that he can see her face, studying him with a curious expression just inches from his own. Her eyes are wide and green as she blinks at him. “It's my job to enforce the rule, Ser. I'm going to take your sword, and toss it over there.”  
  
She pulls his sword out of its sheath and throws it a few feet behind him. He glares at her. “Do you have a knife as well?”

“Seven hells. There's one in my boot and another tucked under my tasset, if you're that determined to grope me and in desperate need of a thrill.”

She pricks his neck, just hard enough to draw blood, and feels around for both knives, tossing them next to his sword. He hears a horse moving through the forest, hopes it's an odd band of outlaws predisposed to dispatch the woman holding him hostage but not he himself. Disappointingly, it sounds like a lone rider. “Don't move.”

He thinks the rider coming through the trees is Brienne for a brief moment, as armor flashes copper and silver and golden in the shifting light. It's Brienne's armor, or near enough, but it's not Brienne. It's Podrick, and he's mounted on Glory. He pulls up to a stop in front of them, blinking as if he can't trust what he's seeing.

“Fuck me, Jaime?”

The girl relaxes the knife at his neck, dropping the point off to the side as she holds it slack in her hand and comes around him. There's a copper raven on her leather jerkin. “What?”  
  
“Let go of him, Meera,” he says, dismounting, dropping Glory's reins. “I thought it was strange the horse came to me like he knew me, but not so strange at all I guess.”

The girl lets go, but she's peering at him closely. “Are you sure? He's supposed to have green eyes, isn't he?”

Podrick shrugs, but then throws his arms around him, drawing him into a bear hug. “Where's her birthmark?”

“Left knee,” he answers, hugging him back. “I have a bauble, just a little glamour. Not enough.”

Podrick smacks his back several times. “We thought you were dead.”

“I am. Ser Brynden Stone, master at arms for the island of Tarth, at your service. Ser Podrick of the Kingsguard, isn't it?”

Podrick laughs and lets go of him. Ser Meera is holding out his knives and sword with the hilts toward him and a sheepish expression on her face, and she is a little slip of a girl and only her eyes hint at her depth and experience. Never the less, she had him in a chokehold until very recently and seems to have a pack of wolves at her command, so she's probably an innocent little girl of the Brienne and Arya variety. It isn't hard to fathom what Podrick sees in her.

“Tarth! Brienne knew the whole time?”

He snorts and laughs, shaking his head. “She was like to murder me when Selwyn told her. But I do suspect you're the absolute last person to know, save his grace.”

“Oh, Bran'll know,” Meera interjects. “He'll be waiting for us at the ferry.”

“Did you come to see the King?” Podrick asks him, plucking his helm out of the grass and holding it out to him.

“I came to enter the lists,” he quips, settling the rose back on his head and peering out through the slits. “As the Knight of Peaches.”

Podrick guffaws, wrapping an arm around his wife's waist and snickering into her hair. He doesn't laugh along and Meera reaches up and squeezes Pod's elbow. “I think he's serious.”

“Really?”

“It...seemed like a good idea at the time.”

He screws his face up. “Well you're going to have to talk to Bran first, for starters, but...I'm not saying you're old, Ser, but -”

“Shut the fuck up, Pod. I don't need this shit from you.”

“Well, you're delightful company, aren't you? Are you always this charming?” By the look on her face, Ser Meera clearly means the opposite of everything she's just said. He does feel a little abashed for cursing in front of her, so he doesn't fling back a quip.  
  
“My apologies, my lady. I haven't been held at knifepoint in some time, and thinking he's going to die does tend to rouse a man's baser instincts. It's a pleasure to meet you at last.”

She doesn't look convinced, but she does shake his hand politely before she walks off through the undergrowth, leading his horse.

“She's a handful,” he breathes, nodding at the girl in green with the great sword slung at her hip.

“You have less than no room to talk, Ser J – was it Brynden?”  
  
“Brynden. Like the Blackfish.”

“Or Bloodraven. It's easy enough to remember. Does Bri know you're here?”

“Of course not. I'm a mystery knight. Keeping my identity secret is the whole point.”

“Well so far you're doing an amazing job of it. I hope it continues to be a smashing success.”

“I thought I'd missed you, do you know that? But you've spent entirely too much time around Tyrion, Pod. All his worst traits are rubbing off on you.”

Podrick just smiles and smacks him on the back again, and they beat through a line of dense bushes and emerge in a little clearing by the lake where Ser Meera is pushing the king off a little wooden platform and back onto dry land.

A king is a king; he has bent his knee to worse ones, for worse reasons. He tugs off his helmet again, settles a knee into the dirt, bows his head, and waits for his audience.

“Ser Brynden, a knight of the vale. Master at Arms for Tarth. Have you come to swear fealty to your king?”

He peeks up. Brandon still has that blank, distant expression on his face, but his skin is pink and he looks hearty.

“That wasn't my purpose, no, but I do swear it – gladly.”

“The things you do for love?”

He can't tell if it's a question or a statement or a barb, but he nods.

“Alright then. You may enter, but only if you agree to remain a mystery. To your wife in particular.”

He stands back up, smirking down at Bran. “Thanks for that, Your Grace. The wedding was a nice touch.”

“That was thanks to Lord Stark of Winterfell, and your own words. You're sailing for Tarth as soon as you've finished making a fool of yourself. That is a command.”

Meera snickers into her hand, and he looks to his right and finds Podrick biting back laughter.

“Meera, raise him to the Kingsguard. As Ser Brynden, please.”

“Wait, what?”

“Our _silent_ brother. I want your sword on Tarth, but I also want your Lord Commander's orders to mean something to you when she gives them. Meera?”

Pod's wife looks ready to mutiny, but she doesn't.

And that's how a one-armed fifty year old man ends up draped in a literal cloak with a metaphorical noose around his neck at a Harrenhal tourney.

For the second time.

**September 29**

Hot Pie bustled them up through the back entrance into the tower he's prepared for them. Tomorrow, they will sup with the smallfolk and knights and lords who've filled the castle to bursting, but tonight they will gather in the king's chamber's at the base of the Godswood Tower. She is arranging her trunks when Pod finds her and flings himself into her arms, and she holds him so tightly their armor scrapes and screeches. “Podrick!”  
  
“Meera's in the Godswood with His Grace. I worried about you the whole time. Where's the baby?”

“Gilly took him off to nurse and Tyrion won't let me have him back. They're all in Sam's chambers. That brown trunk is the one you requested; tell Devan where to take it when you see him next.”

“I'll take it, we're just next door.” He picks up the trunk and props it on his knee. “I want to meet Gerry.”

He drops the trunk off in the room across the hall from hers and they make their way upstairs. There's a babble of laughter and voices coming from the Tarly rooms, and it seems everyone has decided to gather there. Tyrion is sitting on a couch clutching her sleeping baby possessively. Podrick greets the room and slides in next to him and starts unbuckling his gambesons and one of his pauldrons, exposing his forearms and shoulder. He tugs his cloak around to cover his breastplate, and then holds out his arms. “Hand him over, Tyrion.”

“He's _my_ nephew,” Tyrion sniffs, shaking his head.

“You've had two weeks with him already, so make haste.”

Tyrion makes no move to comply, and she speaks more sharply than she means to. “Tyrion. You are not his nursemaid.”

He obeys her and hands Gerry over to Podrick who examines his pink little face and tiny fingers and pursed lips. Tyrion slides off the couch and pours himself a glass of wine. She tries to cheer him, bends down next to him. “Do you have the rules drawn up for the lists?”

He rolls his eyes. “Yes, I have your reams of silly warnings. We'll hand them out at dawn. Don't you have a tourney to prepare yourself for?”

“Are you angry at me for riding?”

“No, Lady Lannister, I'm angry because I can't. Everyone thinks to seem it's such fun, running each other down with lances and swords, and maybe I might like to have a go.”  
  
“I'll ride _for_ you if you'll agree never to call me that again.”

“Everyone calls you that behind your back, but fine. Deal. You'll ride for me, and should you win, you'll crown who I command. And I'll not do that in your company again.”

“That's a terrible offer.”

“I'm a terrible person. I hope you're prepared to win.”

She looks at him closer; she thought it was jape, but he looks deadly serious and depressed. “I'm not riding for the prize, Tyrion. There are many better with a lance, more practiced. I lost to Loras -”

“Loras Tyrell was the best jouster since my brother. You're good enough, Brienne.” He pounds back the rest of his glass and wipes his chin.

“Why does it matter if I win?”

He's pouring himself another. She's going to have to stay here and make sure he doesn't try to hold Gerry again; it's going to be one of those nights where Bronn has to put him to bed.  
  
Where is Bronn, anyway?

“I just had a raven from my wife. She's docked with Arran and Royce at Maidenpool and will be here by brunch. It's seems the Dragon of the North remembered he was supposed to range back to check in at Winterfell every once in a fucking while, so she's coming after all.”

“You want me to ride with your favor for Sansa?”

She swipes his goblet off the table and takes a deep swig before giving it back to him. He shrugs, but he's not trying quite so hard to get drunk quickly, and he salutes her. “To the Queen of the North.”

“You're adorable.”

“Piss off.”

“Podrick will be riding to crown Meera. He wrote and said they've been practicing all summer.”

“They had a lot of time on their hands while His Grace was off singing with the Children. Everyone got a nice little holiday but me. I deserve something nice for a change. You can unseat Podrick; you know all of his weaknesses.”

She was going to try not to use that against him if they wound up matched. But it's true; she won't knock Podrick off his horse for glory, but she might do it for Sansa. She nods.

“Alright, Lord Hand. You may help me win.”

He puts down the wine, pulls up two chairs and climbs into one of them. The light is back in his eyes, as he goes down the lists, ticking off how she can ride to her advantage against everyone who's already declared.

**September 30**

He finds the Lord Hand and Ser Brienne at breakfast together in Tarly's antechamber, going over the updated lists. The small council is a lot of work; they've been digging through this since last night, hunched over the table with their papers dissecting every possible entrant in excruciating detail. Devan isn't really sure he wants to be a knight if he has to be one like Brienne. Podrick's job seems a bit better, less meetings and a lot of fishing trips.

“It's definitely not Bronn. He's not stupid enough to turn out for this.”

But something dark and terrible has happened to Podrick in the forest. He seemed wholly unconcerned with the presence of the half-chewed corpses in the morgue, shrugged at Ser Rolland and said they don't bother the innocent. There's a rabid pack of wolves in the Godswood and they're eating knights.

Ser Rolland is alarmed even if Podrick isn't, and sent Devan off to get Brienne. She looks up from her work, dangling a pastry in one hand while she holds Gerry with the other, and smiles at him. “Morning, Devan.”

“Ser, there are three knights in the morgue. They appear to have been ravaged by wolves. Ser Rolland - “

“If they want not to be eaten, they can follow the King's orders about the Godswood. They are his wolves, and it is his forest.”

He shudders. He's not going near the Godswood ever again, not knowing that.

“Tell Ser Rolland to have his men give them proper burials outside the walls, and send their kits back to whence they came if you can figure out who they were. If you can't, make their horses and armor available by lottery. Anything else?”

“No, Ser.”

“I've had a suit delivered to your rooms with a bard for your horse in your father's colors. If you mean to ride, declare it.”

“My mother -”  
  
“I will deal with Marya.”

He flushes and nods. “Thank you.”

“Go ready yourself for battle, Devan, as soon as you've briefed Ser Rolland.” She takes another bite of her pastry, dismissing him with a nod. “I don't know, Tyrion, but it has to be someone who was at Bitterbridge. It's too stupid a name not to be a jape at Renly's expense.”

He closes her door and heads back out to the morgue.

It's a shame about the wolves, but at least they seem more selective than dragons. And Devan's pretty happy about getting to ride.

Maybe the forest does something strange to everyone who goes into it.

~@~ ~@~ ~@~

They're all dressed and ready when Meera and the King arrive, the knights of the realm in their motley. She wears her blue armor instead of her Kingsguard kit, and though it's battered and dented it still feels like her true skin. Podrick looks like a shining prince because Tyrion somehow managed to procure a suit that was Rhaegar's and has decked him out like a tapestry knight. The armor she gifted Devan is well made but plain save for the knotted ropes embossed at the edges in bronze. Ned is wearing silver; a silver cloak, silver stars. Ser Rolland is kitted out in Tarth's rose gold instead of his city guard uniform.

She sees Meera weaving a grey silk embroidered with blue wolves around Podrick's arm, feels Tyrion tugging at her hand. She bends down next to him, lets him tie his red and gold ribbons around her bicep, tries not to think about the weight of his favor and the subtext of wearing it to joust at Harrenhal. Bronn watches from the corner with an amused expression, wearing some kind of silk caftan in a garish shade of maroon, and once she sees him it's hard to take any of it seriously. “Sit with me for the feast,” Tyrion demands, patting her hand.

She walks down with him, leaving Meera and Podrick and Ned to attend the King. Davos and Sam and the ladies and children are already seated, but they've all left the places closest to Brandon's untouched. The hall is full; a cheer goes up when they enter and she lets Tyrion guide her over to the place next to Gilly. He leaves an empty space next to the King's setting and sits next to her. Bronn comes along behind them, while Gilly's handing Gerry over to her, and tries to sit next to Tyrion.

“It's not for you, Bronn. Sit with Podrick at the children's end of the table.”

He shrugs and pulls out the chair on the other side of Brandon's setting, sniffing the wine, rolling his eyes as he pours some into his glass. Bronn begins drinking immediately, but Tyrion doesn't even fill his glass as he waits; that's a change. She sips at a cup of water.

Gerry starts and flails when the hall erupts with King's arrival, and she finds herself jiggling her knee and paying more attention to trying to get him to settle than to the cheers and applause. They all stand, and then Wylla is there beside her, taking Gerry and ducking out through the back, and she's grateful. There's a small scuffle as Meera bumps Bronn down the table, and he bows low to the King, hooks his finger through a jug of the good wine and tucks it under his arm. Then he tells them all to piss off and that he's going down to eat with the smallfolk.

Bran says a few pretty words about the harvest, and summer, and growing a new green world, and bids them all to eat. The servers fill the humble tables first, starting in the back, as they sip their drinks and wait. The vast hall is full; it thrills her, but she also scans her surroundings with a soldier's eye, glad there's a wall at her back and she can see everything from her place next to the King's Hand. When about half the tables have been served, the doors open on the other end of the hall and a hush settles over it.

The Queen in the North wears a steel grey gown and cloak of scattered red leaves on a white field trails behind her as she walks slowly down the length of the hall of hearths. The Lords of the Vale flank her, and a dozen northern knights trail behind her.

But in front of her walks a grizzled little man in the heavy wool and squirrelskin pelts of the far north. His shock of white hair sticks straight up from his head, and he goes down on his knees on the stairs leading to the table.

“Your grace!”

“Lord Liddle. I have saved a place for you here at my right hand. You remember Ser Meera, do you not?”

The old man nods. “I do.”

“No feast could ever be as fine as the berry cakes and sausage you shared with us, but please; sit and eat.”

Tyrion gives her a black look and fills his cup of wine, trying to appear gracious as the seat he meant to save for Sansa is filled with a little northern farmer. He bows low to his wife, and she bends to kiss his cheek before she turns to Brienne and embraces her.

“You look well, sister. Where's my nephew?”

“Wylla took him out to rock him back to sleep,” she laughs. “You're as bad as Tyrion.”

“That's a cruel thing to say! Hello, your grace.” She turns to kiss her brother's forehead, hails Podrick and Meera, but she and Robyn and Royce take seats on the far side of them next to Hot Pie.

“I wasn't sure you'd remember me, your grace. The wildlings frightened my wife when they rode down on us, but they came to take us to Winterfell to travel with the Queen's party.”

“I remember everything. A hundredfold for every nut and berry. You should have anything your heart desires that is in my power to give.”

“You gave us peace. A Stark in Winterfell. Summer.”

“The Gods gave you that, my Lord. Think on it; it's open ended.”

“Sweet,” she grunts toward the Liddle and her king, allowing Tyrion to fill her glass half full as she blinks tears from her eyes.

“No more after that, Ser Brienne. We need you in peak condition.”

She chuckles at the irony of Tyrion trying to monitor her intake and toasts him.

~@~ ~@~ ~@~

A jug plops down on the table in front of him. He's nestled between a family of farmers that still smell like pig shit even in their very best clothes and a pimply boy in a hodgepodge of scavenged pieces of rusty armor. The trencher of bread and stew is tasty, at least, and the ale strong enough, but his eyes widen when he sees the wine and his mouth waters. “Brought you a little something from the high lords table. Shove over, cunt.”

He chugs down his ale so that he can pour some wine into his wooden cup. Bronn has brought his own little gold goblet and tucks into the food as soon as he settles. Jaime has figured out how to lift the visor of his helmet enough to stuff food and drink into his mouth, but it means he can't see much of what's happening around him. They took his weapons in the yard, so he's defenseless and pressed in by a crowd and blind. It's not really worth a hot dinner, now that he's here. But the wine is good.

“What's happening up there? I can't see anything at all.”

“Queen Sansa arrived. The Hand is moping. Ser Brienne looks amused by the whole thing. About what you'd expect.”

“I didn't expect _any_ of this. I was almost eaten by fucking wolves out there.”

Bronn whistles. “I forgot to tell you about those. Sorry.”

“You ought to be. Who am I riding against?”

“No idea. Tyrion and Brienne won't let anyone else see the lists. They're stacking them, I'm sure.”

“As if Brienne would cheat.”

“She's learning from the best, you idiot. For Highgarden.” Bronn is tying something on his arm. He's fifty, fucked, and wearing Bronn's favor. He needs all the help he can get.

 _He_ might cheat, but she won't. He shrugs and eats his dinner. He can't do anything to strategize until he sees the lists.

~@~ ~@~ ~@~

Devan's dreams of winning the tournament are over before they've begun to take shape. He thought it was too good to be true, that they were letting him ride, but when the lists are posted it turns out he's drawn Brienne on the first go. She's nice enough to wait until the third tilt to pluck him cleanly off his horse. He lands on his feet, waves to the cheering crowd, and he's done. At least he didn't embarrass himself, because while he's gone out in the first round it's to the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard and he made a pretty if not very competent showing. He hands his horse off to a groom and takes off his helmet, tucking it under his arm. He nods to Edric Baratheon who's strapping on his shield and pulling down his visor. Edric goes out too, to a knight in an ill fitting suit of rose-enameled armor and a hideous peach cloak and bards, mounted on a big black charger. Edric falls hard, and Ser Rolland is there in an instant, picking him up and checking him over before handing him off to Devan. They make it up to the King's box by the time Podrick rides against Lord Westerling, and then Rollam is out too. When he turns from the rail, his father is staring at him proudly and his mother looks relieved it's over and he shrugs. Of their cohort, only Ned Dayne gets through to the second round. Devan decides to cheer for him from here on out, out of loyalty to his fellow squires.

~@~ ~@~ ~@~

“Who's next?” He says, shifting himself in the saddle, setting the lance across his pommel and adjusting the glove on his wooden arm. He tugs his shield back into place and closes the clasp. His third round has gone splendidly, and he left some minor Lannister in the dust.

“The kid from Dorne, most likely.”

“The one in Arthur Dayne's armor?”

“Ned.”

“Gods, anyone but him. I'd rather run down Arthur's ghost, if it's all the same. Who else is left?”

“Pod's still in.”  
  
“Podrick is no match for me,” he sniffs.

“He's better than I expected, at any rate. But you've held up longer than I thought you would as well. I stand to make a fortune on you by dusk if you can keep your seat one more round.”

“You bet on me? I'm touched!”

“On you, against you. I bet quite a few different ways, but there were longer odds on you succeeding than failing. Brienne and Podrick are the favorites; that's how far Westeros has fallen in these last years, mark you. Bloody kingsguard toffs.”

Bronn wanders off to get the updated pairings, and he watches Brienne and Podrick as they sit on their horses below the King's box, calling up to where Meera and Sansa lean over the rail. The Queen is holding Gerry in her arms and waving his tiny hand at his mother while they all laugh like girls. And then he sees the King's gaze is fixed on him, that Brandon is watching him watch them, and he looks away.

Bloody Brandon. He's really beginning to rue the day he tossed him out a window.

When Bronn wanders back with the lists, he looks pale and his mouth is drawn in a little line.

“It's over. I'm going to go cash out while you're still ahead,” he says, shoving the list up at him.

“I can't read it through these slits. Just tell me who I drew.”

He doesn't answer. He just turns around and walks away, but he's humming the Bear and the Maiden Fair.

This. This is _exactly_ what he was hoping for.

“Bronn, wait. Not yet.”

His friend slows to a stop, but doesn't turn.

“I can win against her.”

He looks over his shoulder. “Don't be ridiculous.”

“If anyone knows her weaknesses, I do.”

His eyes widen, but he nods slowly. “You intend to fight dirty?”

“That, my friend, is only way worth fighting our dear Brienne.”

“I don't think you can beat her,” Bronn sighs, but then he smiles. “But it's worth all the gold in my vaults to watch you try.”

~@~ ~@~ ~@~

Brandon intervened on the penultimate draw. It's the only explanation. By the system of points she and Tyrion devised, she should be riding against Podrick.

Instead she's matched against the mystery knight of peaches, waiting on her impatient mount while Podrick tilts at Ned Dayne for the fourth time. Both of them keep striking glancing blows, and Ned's broken a lance off, but they're pretty evenly matched. She's hoping Pod wins; if she's to lose, she wanted to lose to him. And if she's going to win…

Tyrion deserves her best effort. Sansa too. She can't imagine anything more gratifying than crowning Sansa in roses with Lannister favors tied around her arm. It would be the perfect end to the king's harvest feast.

She's daydreaming about it when she hears a cry go up from the crowd, and she looks up to see Ned with his foot caught in his stirrup, trying not to go under his horse. He manages to untangle himself, but throws himself free of his steed in the process.

One more round, and then it will be just Podrick in the way of victory, and Podrick can be dispatched fairly easily.

She's watched the mystery knight from a distance all day; he wasn't hard to follow because Bronn is dressed conspicuously and keeps going over to talk to him. And his cloak is the most hideous color she's ever seen. Ripe peaches indeed.

He's good, she has to give him that, and he holds his lance in his left and that's to his advantage. But he's also a bit slow to mount and dismount and clearly past his prime, and she realizes Bronn has dug up some aging tourney knight from the Reach to upset the outcomes. Which doesn't surprise her at all, actually.

But she wishes she'd studied his technique a bit more closely in the earlier rounds, instead of chatting with Sansa over the rail, because she's not entirely sure what she's up against. He sits his horse with an easy grace, despite his hideous armor.

It doesn't help her mental state that the first time she lost at lances, it was to someone wearing that very rose on his pretty skull.

And then she's certain that it was Bronn who cooked the lists, and she's angry. Angry enough to charge at him when the flag drops, and her lance lands true but skitters off his shield and his barely touches her shoulder in passing. She spins at the end of the rail, adjusts her seat, and stares at him through narrowed eyes. She has the sense he was toying with her on the first tilt, taking her measure. She cries out at she charges him again, and hears the smallfolk roar as they bear down on each other. She steadies her pole, aiming for his heart, but at the last moment he ducks away and raises his shield, and her lance explodes in her hand. Her horse dances in a little circle while she picks splinters out of her saddle, and then she realizes her opponent is sitting on the opposite side of the rail, watching her and laughing.

She knows that laugh.

“Get yourself another stick, wench.”

Grey eyes are sparkling at her through the slit in the helmet.

“I ordered you back to Tarth,” she hisses through clenched teeth. Sweet, stupid Jaime...he looks ridiculous.

“I had an itch to turn out for Renly's peach,” he shrugs, trotting away from her.

Devan is waiting with another lance, and she snatches it out of his hands, trying to calm her nerves now that she knows what she's up against.

She's out for blood when she charges again, but it does her no good. He exploits her as she meant to exploit Podrick, sitting forward in his seat and letting her connect with his shield. But instead of tender flesh, it's backed by wood and iron. Her lance shatters again, and his connects. She feels a blow to her gut as she tumbles backward off her horse.

The sky spins above her as she gasps for air, tugging off her helmet and blinking the dust from her eyes. The crowd has let out a collective groan; she was favored, and she knows it. He circles his horse, jumps the rail cleanly, and prances in a little victory lap around her, staring down through his stolen rosebud mask.

“Sorry,” he says, waiting for her to recover. She does, pushes herself to her elbows and glares at him. His eyes crinkle in a smile through the slit. “You'll live.”

“But will you?”

“Oh, I think I might. Get up, the smallfolk are scared for you.”

“Fuck off,” she flings back, but she totters up to her feet, bowing her head in defeat.

The crowd cheers her anyway. He waves a hand at her dramatically. “Well, wish me luck wife. I'm off to take out Podrick.”

“I hope he kills you,” she grits back through her teeth, forcing a smile onto her face for the sake of the smallfolk cheering their defeated hero.

~@~ ~@~ ~@~

“Gerry's proud of you, aren't you bub?” Sansa is holding him when she limps back up the yard, waiting for her.

Sansa looks so beautiful, and so happy, that Brienne blinks tears out of her eyes as she pulls off her blue armor and tosses it in a heap, shaking her hair out. Then she turns and holds her arms out, and Sansa hands him over and twists her hands in her skirt. “Tyrion is taking it hard.”

“He meant me to crown you the Queen of Love and Beauty with this stupid Lannister ribbon tied round my arm. But we failed to factor in Bronn's participation.”

Sansa nods toward the knight who's adjusting his tack before the next round at the far end of the yard. “He's good. Any idea where Bronn found him?”

She snorts. “I know exactly where he went to ground, and we rue the day we met him, don't we Gerry? I strongly advise you annul your marriage while the option is still on the table.”

It takes Sansa a moment to catch on, but then she does and laughs merrily. So Sansa knows about his miraculous survival too, and it appears she's the only one who didn't. They might as well hire some singers to go round serenading people about how Jaime Lannister is both still alive and still an ass. But then she looks up into the stands, and the King is staring at her with a small smile on his face, and he shakes his head slightly.

She's beginning to rue the day Jaime tossed him out a window.

“I suspect His Grace wants him to remain a mystery,” she sulks. They wind their way back to the stands, mount the stairs, take up seats on the bench next to Brandon. “Well, let's hope Ser Podrick manages to knock him into the dust.”

Bronn slides in next to her, propping his elbows on his knees. He's dressed like Dornish royalty and is clearly fulfilling all of his fantasies. “That's the most I've ever made off a single tilt. I'm a rich man thanks to you, Lady Lannister.”

“You're Master of Coin, Bronn. What's a few more tons of gold to you?”

“Well, nothing compared to the sweet taste of victory, that's fair.” He reaches into his ridiculous silk folds and produces a handful of small but ripe peaches, offering one out to her. “Can I tempt you with a peach, my lady?”

She reaches for the sword she isn't armed with, Gerry propped against her shoulder, before she remembers who and where she is, and she slumps back down on the bench. Tyrion shoves in between them, cradling his head in his hands but grabbing one of the peaches. He bites into it, dribbling juice onto his lap. Meera's down in the yard sweetly kissing Podrick for luck. She turns and sees the knight of the fucking fruits watching them from Glory as he waits alone on his end of the rail and she props her child a bit higher up on her arm so she can give his father a two fingered salute with the hand that cradles him.

He shakes his head and blows them a kiss, and then readies the lance on his arm.

~@~ ~@~ ~@~

He thought he would lose to Brienne, or perhaps – after he managed to unseat Dayne – even beat her. But then Jaime knocked her straight out of her saddle, and even as he leans down and kisses his wife, he knows the best he can hope for is not to embarrass himself too badly during his impending defeat.

Ah well. He's done better than he hoped to after all.

Meera would look so lovely crowned in blue roses. Pity she ruined any chance of it when she tried to slit Jaime's throat. He isn't likely to forget that very quickly.

Podrick charges hard but cautiously on the first two tilts, desperate not to make a fool of himself, and shatters his lance on the third. Then he feels what Brienne met, the thick wall behind the dented shield, and knows that he's being toyed with. So he allows it, the glancing blows and bursts of laughter, their panting sweat-soaked horses snorting at each other, the lances he breaks off again on his sixth and tenth tilts. “End it already,” he grinds out after the fifteenth charge, checking his shield for cracks.

He knows it's coming, tries to move with it instead of against it. His shield flies apart, bits of it dangling from his arm, as he tucks and rolls, coming a stop on his knees in a pile of sawdust that used to be lances, pulling his helmet off and letting it fall. The crowd roars around them and Jaime dismounts, helping him back to his feet, bowing to the king's dais without removing his own helm. “Lean on me, Podrick.”

“I'm fine,” he replies, waving to the crowd and then to the stands where his wife has joined the king and their family and friends.  
  
“I'm not. I need your help to walk over there.”

“You're a lot of work, Ser Brynden,” he grunts, hoisting him up with an arm wrapped around his waist. They stumble toward the dais. Everyone looks happy except for Brienne, who is glaring daggers at them over her baby's bouncing head as Meera pushes Bran forward and two men drag the little victory platform into place against the rail.

~@~ ~@~ ~@~  
  
Pod has to drag him up the stairs, and he's grateful for the help even though the little shit tells him it's a lot of work to lend him an arm for a few paces.

“That's what she says,” he slurs, his voice muffled by the helm. They both bow low when they reach the King.

Brandon offers him the prize first, a small sapphire rose that's handed over with a crooked smile and a promise that later he will have a tale to go with it. And then there are the bags of gold from the entry fees, and he nods them over to Bronn, who puts down a handful of peaches to accept the load. The king looks glad enough to redirect his coins, and his sister stands beside him clutching the final offering, the wreath of roses, to her breast.

When he concocted this dumb plan, it was with the dream of crowning Brienne in front of the assembled lords and ladies and otherwise of the realm. But she's holding their child up like a human shield and glaring at him with a darkness that suggests if he tried to put it on her head she would pluck out each individual bud and stuff them, thorns first, so far up his ass he'd be tasting petals for months. That might be fun in private, but it would invite awkward speculation in front of the assembled kingdoms.

Turns out his wife is an unbelievably sore loser.

“I cannot choose. Crown a queen, your grace.”

There is a light in Brandon's eyes as he smiles back, as the boy breaks through the shell for just a moment. His voice is clear and loud as he proclaims, “The Mystery Knight of Peaches has asked me to crown our Queen with roses.”

Bran turns his head first to his right, studies Meera and then Sansa. He shakes his head slightly, earning huffs from both Tyrion and Podrick, and then looks to his left. At first Jaime thinks Brandon is going to give her what she won't accept from him, and his heart skips a beat. But the King looks past Brienne, down to the end of the bench, and he nods his head. “A lady of the Reach for our victorious knight of Flowers, I think. Lady Tarly?”

She's burping Edd and talking quietly with Helaena, ignoring the tournament, and Sam has to tug on her arm and point. The King repeats himself. “Lady Tarly?”

“Your grace?”

Jaime bites back a laugh as she bustles up, a child on her hip and one tugging at her skirts behind her, and makes her way over to them. It's charming because she has no idea what's happening or what the King is asking, but she's anxious to please and apologizes to Bronn as she steps on his foot.

She is not the most beautiful woman there, not by any man's standards save perhaps Samwell's. But her confusion and innocence are charming as she curtsies to them. She hasn't the slightest idea what any of them are doing or why, but she presents herself to His Grace and tries to swat baby Sam behind her. Brienne wrestles him down to the bench with her spare arm, pinning him there, and then looks up and rewards his victory with a rare real smile, teeth and all. “I pronounce you Gilly of the Flowers, Queen of Summer.”

“Oh, your grace, I can't -” she begins, but then Sansa tugs her down and Brandon sets the blue roses on her russet curls. The crowd cheers. Bronn gets to his feet, shouts that he will meet them in the hall with a ripe peach and a gold coin for every man, woman and child in attendance. The smallfolk and defeated knights and assorted lords are herded toward the hall by Ser Rolland's men, and then it is just their little coterie in the dais and himself and Podrick propped against the rail.

“Return to your tent in the woods, Ser Brynden. I don't want to see you on the mainland again without an express invitation.”

He doesn't want to leave them, but he's desperate to get the helmet off and wet his hair and wash off the sweat and dust, so he shrugs.

“Everyone go rest for a while; we'll meet in the hall to close the feast in two hours.”

Podrick climbs the rail and slumps down on the bench, resting his head on his lady wife's shoulder. Sansa and Tyrion have moved down with Lady Tarly to talk to Davos. Brandon turns to his Lord Commander. “You're dismissed, Ser. Take your mystery knight and go, but I'll need you in your Kingsguard kit for dinner. I mean to have you raise Ned and Devan and Rollam as knights, and to appoint Ned to his post.”

She nods, gets up, walks down the stairs with Gerry nestled in her cloak in her arms. Walks off without waiting for him to catch up, is almost to the entrance of the Godswood when he limps up behind her, panting and moaning artfully with each step.

“Well there's your sacred seven, Lord Commander.”

She's still angry, looks over his shoulder instead of at him as she turns her head without slowing her march. “That's six, as you would know if you could count.”

“I'm your fourth, wench. Ser Meera welcomed me with open arms at His Grace's bidding.”

“That's a lie,” she says blandly, still making her way over the undergrowth toward the lake. If there are wolves in the forest (there most certainly are) she pays them no mind.

“You've got me there. She was right peeved about the whole thing, but she did it anyway.”

She stops and huffs, lets him come around her. He pulls the stupid helmet from his tousled grey head, stares up at her with pleading eyes. “He said he thought Ser Brynden might obey your orders if he swore a holy oath to do so.”

She snorts, but then she gives him a soft kiss on the lips, hiding her smile in his beard before she brushes past him again. “He knows nothing.”

“He knows everything. That's what makes it such a delightful joke.”

“Do you plan on plaguing me the rest of my blessed existence?”

“I suppose you might find a cure for it, but I don't know why you'd want to. Now I held my lance like a good little knight, and I was promised a peach at the end.”

“I'll send Devan out with one later.”

“I meant you, wench. I jumped into a bear pit for you, the least you could do is reward me.”

But then an idea flashes like a light going off in his head and he grabs at her arm like a madman, tugging on it. “We could sneak into the baths, later, and -”

“Oh no we're not. I'm not ruining that fantasy with a hefty dose of the reality of you. Come, Ser Brynden. Let's get you out of your armor and tucked in for the evening. I have places to be.”

“I hope there are songs about this,” he babbles happily. “The unseating of Ser Brienne. They can call it the Fall of the Evenstar, put it to a pretty melody -”

“Have you ever stopped to consider there might be a reason none of your kings will let you attend any feasts?”

“They don't want to be outshined by my good looks and charm?”

“I don't want you on my Kingsguard.”

“Well I don't really want to _be_ in your silly club, so we're even. Help me out of this armor and then hold me. I've earned that much, and you wouldn't even let me give you flowers at the end.”

The furs look inviting. He plops himself down on them and pats the space beside him until she lays Gerry down and begins unbuckling his pauldrons. He means to hold her and kiss her and cuddle their babe and enjoy his victory, but he's dozing beside his son before she's done pulling the breastplate over his head.

He sleeps beside the lake at Harrenhal, and he doesn't dream of anything, not even the knight who curls herself around them on the King's pelts, watching over them as they slumber.

**Author's Note:**

> I hesitate to turn these into song fics, but this one deserves a hat tip because I clung onto it like dear life to get here. 
> 
> Real Peach by Henry Jamison https://youtu.be/3QOtrhAhuJc


End file.
